Korean/scripts
Overview The Roman script is internationally so useful and vital that the other scripts have to do with transliteration or romanization varying from the orthoepic to orthographic perspective. The use of more than one orthography in law is more often than not, when the complete reciprocity should be ensured. The maximal reciprocity may well be desired of any transliteration, whether orthoepic or orthographic. The less may be still worthy of orthoepy while maybe unworthy of orthography enough for its multiplicity in law. There are three major ways of romanizing Korean, McCune-Reischauer, Yale, and the latest Revised Romanization. But these were not designed as another orthography (especially in law, but rather orthoepy at best) of Korean in addition to the native one. Meanwhile, you may wish to enjoy the orthographic level of reciprocity between the native Korean and its Roman scripts, as neither is as such in practice. Or, you may want to examine the present level of reciprocity that may vary from one way to another. Or, you may want to study the Korean language, whether archaic or modern, in Roman rather than native script or orthography. The following is drafted as, so to speak, Roman Orthography of Korean (ROK) in addition to the native (NOK), hangul or hangeul. This nominal disparity may be an evidence that ROK is yet to emerge. Don't confuse it with the existing orthoepic romanizations of Korean. The native Korean script or orthography, however well-done it may seem, is phonetically not so perfect or orthoepic that the dictionary has to make the entry on the left, in the following for example, be followed by the practical pronunciation, as bracketed on the right: : cjagda cjargcta (작다 작ː따) Such native, orthoepic imperfection seems to induce the concerned strongly to aim to surpass and make it perfect in romanizing. However, this may be where the said orthographic reciprocity certainly degenerates. Perfect may not be made by any Roman script that is quite arbitrary as a matter of fact. Perhaps the only practical way of Korean making phonetically perfect may be through the native dictionary, as suggested above. Then, the desirable role of ROK would be to certainly lead to the native script, which in turn would lead to the ultimate authority of sounding as well as meaning. Korean in Roman Evolutionary vowels Hangwul * According to Wikipedia: Jamo #Traditional account, *: "the original order of the vowels was: ㆍ ㅡ ㅣ ㅗ ㅏ ㅜ ㅓ ㅛ ㅑ ㅠ ㅕ." * This is quite informative. The order splits into three sets, (ㆍ ㅡ ㅣ), ( ㅗ ㅏ ㅜ ㅓ), ( ㅛ ㅑ ㅠ ㅕ), as described as follows, where the second and the third are analogous. *# The three members, standing for Heaven and Earth (or Yang and Wum) and Man between them, are atomic, elementary, simple vowels, consisting of one element. *# The four members are single-dotted, simple vowels, consisting of two elements. *# The four members are double-dotted, iotized vowels, consisting of three elements. * This is quite suggestive of the steady step-by-step evolution or extension of Hangwul vowels (vowels hereafter in contrast to "vowels" for Roman vowels), as shown on the table above,By the way, you may be sensitive enough to observe the body of the 2nd and 4th columns looks lighter than that of the 3rd and 5th columns, respectively, though the 2nd-3rd and 4th-5th columns respectively share the same objective or physical shade. The observed differences in shade are subjective or physiological instead of objective or physical! Why? In general, our physiology may favor an object felt in sharper than physical contrast with the surroundings. And this may hold in hearing and even the other senses. We hear the whisper louder in silence. On the other hand, we hear the talk of our partner clearer in the noisy pub, and the mother penguin hears her baby's quack clearer in the extremely noisy crowds. wikipedia:Colin Cherry (1953) dubbed this physiological bias the cocktail party effect. and as described as follows: *# The three premordial, 1st-stage vowels are born to stand for Heaven and Earth (天 and 地, 陽 and 陰, or Solar and Lunar) and Man (人) standing between both sides. *# The three atomic vowels mate with each other one way or another to give birth to four more simple vowels. *# The four 2nd-stage vowels mate with the solar (ㆍ) to give birth to four corresponding iotized vowels. *# The four 2nd-stage vowels further mate in harmony to give birth to a pair of harmonic diphthongs. *# All the twelve vowels born so far on both sides but the neutral (ㅣ) for Man mate with Man to give birth to twelve corresponding diphthongs ending with the neutral (ㅣ). * In contrast with all the others, Uremal Romanization (UR) keeps step with these steady, step-by-step stages fully faithfully, which may well serve as a ready bench mark in romanizing Korean. The partial excellence may matter less than the whole in the system in order. * The Modern Korean language is not the whole story. That is, the Old Korean language and the obsolete Hangwul elements should have been taken seriously in romanizing Korean, especially from the academic and orthographic perspective. Uremal Romanization * UR keeps step with the steady, step-by-step, evolutionary stages of Hangwul vowels as faithfully as follows: *# [i'''-based] The Roman vowel /i/ is adopted for the Korean equivalent that is for Man, while the other two for Yang and Wum, though primordial, are left to be decided later in the 4th stage, as their sounds are most unfamilar to Roman users. *# ['''aeou-go] The four additional well-established Roman vowels /a/e/o/u/ are respectively adopted for the four 2nd-stage Hangwul vowels "ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ, ㅜ." *# [y'''-added] The four 2nd-stage Roman vowels are iotized by use of the leading semivowel /y/. *# ['''w-added] The two 2nd-stage Roman vowels /a/ (ㅏ) and /e/ (ㅓ) are harmonized by use of the leading semivowel /w/. Meanwhile, the remaining two /o/ (ㅗ) and /u/ (ㅜ) follow the leading semivowel /w/ so as to stand for the two unfamiliar and undergrown 1st-stage vowels for Heaven and Earth. *# [j-added] All the twelve Roman vowels (of both Yang and Wum sides) but the neutral /i/ that were formed so far are made diphthongs by use of the ending semivowel /j/. Throughout the five evolutionary stages, UR keeps step with the steady step-by-step extension of Korean vowels exceptionally faithfully. Yale Romanization * YR is closest to UR. Vitally, however, the original symmetry along the second column between "ㅗㅚ" and "ㅜㅟ" is corrupted. The pair of /o/ and /oy/ would better pair with that of /u/ and /uy/, even /wu/ and /wuy/ instead of /wu/ and /wi/ in practice. * More, if not most, fatally, the ending vowels /y/ of diphthongs such as /way/ (ㅙ) and /wey/ (ㅞ) would bring in ambiguity such as /hayan/ to split into /ha-yan/ (하얀) "white" and /hay-an/ (해안) "beach". Thus, the disembiguating hyphen should always be used. This is absolutely redundant in Uremal, e.g., /hayan/ and /hajan/, respectively. * It is quite anomalous for YR to assign /u/ to "ㅡ" sounding so unfamilar, while /wu/ to "ㅜ" sounding (like /u/ in general) so familar, to most, if not all, other languages. * YR should have secured or made best use of the globally well-established vowels /a/e/i/o/u/ for the five Korean simple vowels "ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅣ, ㅗ, ㅜ" as the main building blocks in action. * YR would better have adopted /wy/ or /wuy/ instead of the popular /wi/ (ㅟ) so as to faithfully keep step with those diphthongs with the ending semivowel /y/ (ㅣ). * Perhaps the worst of YR is to end the 5th-stage diphthongs with /y/, with which the 3rd-stage iotized vowels begin in addition, hence highly confusingly. * In this regard, compare with UR using /y/ soly for iotizing in the 3rd stage, and /j/ for ending most diphthongs in the 5th stage. Revised Romanization * RR aims to be more faithful to orthoepy than orthography, but after all fails in both ways. Regardless of the steady step-by-step extension of Hangwul vowels, RR made itself far worse than YR. * RR evolves vowels from MR, mainly replacing the clusy breve over /o/ and /u/ in MR with /e/, while leaving its adequacy open to doubt. * As YR uses /y/ in both ways as the leading and ending semivowels, so does RR /e/ beyond its primary role as a full vowel, hence the triple role such as: *# The last-stage vowel /e/ (ㅔ) as in /ne/ (네), /seje/ (세제). *# The leading semivowel instead of the breve of MR as in /eo/ (어), /eu/ (으). *# The ending semivowel (ㅣ) as in /ae/ (애), /oe/ (외). * This triplex no doubt brings in the source of triple ambiguity. An imaginary /che-o-e-um/ (체오에움) is fully hence dully hyphenated so as not to be confused with /cheo-eum/ (처음) and many others. (Cf. /chejoejum/ and /chewum/, respectively, once and for all in UR) * As such, with many hyphens, it is surely unworthy of decent orthography, however successful in orthoepy, which is also quite doubtful. * Orthoepy by definition or in the strict sense ought to be free from ambiguity from which RR suffers a lot especially without the enough use of disambiguating hyphens. RR is just another easy but fuzzy system of Roman phonetic signs in reality. McCune–Reischauer * MR is the first in origin but perhaps the worst of all since it bears on the clumsy breve over /o/ and /u/ too heavily. RR tries to escape from this weakness only to shift from one to another, say, from /ch'ŏŭm/ to /cheo-eum/ (처음) cf. /cheum/ in YR and /chewum/ in UR. YR would be better than UR here, not to mention the others, should nothing else matters. * Thus, recall /ha-yan/ (하얀, white) and /hay-an/ (해안, beach) in YR cf. /hayan/ and /hajan/ in UR, respectively. In contrast with YR and RR, UR always does without either ambiguity or the disambiguating hyphen, not to mention the breve in MR at worst. More critiques * The three old systems commonly take /wi/ (ㅟ) for granted, however out of order it may be. This is a rough evidence of their orientation in English that is phonetically and thus orthoepically so uncertain. German and Italian could do without phonetic signs but English could not. What's wrong : From the information theoretic point of view ; With /e/ in Revised Romanization? : The shorter /e/ should be assigned to the oftener "ㅓ" while the longer to "ㅔ" as each is repeated respectively as follows: ; With /wu/ in Yale Romanization? : The shorter /u/ should be assigned to the oftener "ㅜ" while the the longer /wu/ to "ㅡ" as each is repeated respectively as follows: See also * Korean/jamo * Wikipedia:jamo Notes * The six initial consonants that take two letters in the Revised Romanization, such as /kk/ (ㄲ), /tt/ (ㄸ), /pp/ (ㅃ), /ss/ (ㅆ), /jj/ (ㅉ), and /ch/ (ㅊ), are reduced to three, /th/ (ㄸ) and /cj/ (ㅈ) and /cc/ (ㅉ), or four at most when /ch/ (ㅊ) is included. * By so doing, the traditional ambiguity such that /bueokkan/ may be either /bueok-kan/ (부엌칸) or /bueo-kkan/ (부어깐) matters practically no more: * The use of /t/ in some final consonants is to help sound or hear more realistically in the Roman tradition. * The only worst injustice may be done to the initial consonant /cj/ (ㅈ), as /j/ is mainly used as a "half vowel". * Most, if not practically all, of archaic hangwl scripts can be romanized. The initial of archaic syllables shall be capitalized. ; Orderly vowels * 7 simple vowels + 6 diphthongs * 4 iotized vowels + 4 diphthongs * 2 harmonic vowels + 2 diphthongs ; More orderly vowels ; The original order of the vowels was: : ㆍ ㅡ ㅣ ㅗ ㅏ ㅜ ㅓ ㅛ ㅑ ㅠ ㅕ. ; Footnotes ; Comments : group=c ; Quotes : group=q ; References : group=r ; Wikis : group=w ; Xternal links : group=x